Before the Qur’an | A Conversation with Dr. Süleyman Dost
Sképsislamica
10,496 views
In this episode, we’re looking into one of the central questions in the study of early Islam: where does the Qur’an come from? 📖
This can be approached in a number of ways. Some scholars focus on the later Muslim literary tradition 📝, while others situate the Qur’an within the broader religious and linguistic context of Late Antiquity 🏛️, often drawing on Syriac and biblical parallels ✝️📚.
But another approach is to begin with the material evidence—inscriptions 🪨, archaeology 🏺, and linguistic data 🔤 that can be securely dated to the pre-Islamic period—and ask what that evidence can tell us about the Qur’an’s historical setting.
On the Real Talk Podcast 🎙️ we’re joined by Dr. Süleyman Dost to discuss his book, Before the Qur’an: Material Sources at the Advent of Muslim Scripture, which takes this approach seriously and examines what can (and cannot) be said about the Qur’an’s origins when we prioritise pre-Islamic material sources.
We discuss how this method relates to previous scholarship 🎓, the limitations of relying exclusively on epigraphic and archaeological evidence ⚖️, and what it might reveal about the linguistic and religious landscape of Arabia on the eve of Islam 🌍.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏳ Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:44 – What Does It Mean to Ask “Where Does the Qur’an Come From?”
03:40 – How the Field of Islamic Origins Has Changed in the Last Decade
09:22 – Why South Arabia Has Been Neglected in Qur’anic Studies
13:30 – Can Islamic Origins Be Studied Without Muslim Sources?
17:55 – Written, Oral and Linguistic Culture in Pre-Islamic Arabia
27:00 – Did Paganism Still Exist in the Qur’an’s World?
33:36 – What the Qur’an’s Arabian Deities Reveal About Its Origins
39:33 – The Qur’an’s Inner Chronology and the Names of God
42:18 – Can Mean Verse Length and Interpolations Really Date the Qur’an?
52:34 – Al-Rahman, the Basmalah and the Development of the Qur’an
1:00:30 – Understanding the “Syriacist Trend” in Qur’anic Studies
1:06:28 – Geʿez, Aramaic and the Origins of Qur’anic Vocabulary
1:15:34 – Can Philology Oversimplify the Language of the Qur’an?
1:18:20 – Why the Stories of Abraha and Ethiopia Still Matter
1:22:08 – How Biblical and Syriac Traditions Reached the Qur’an
1:31:15 – The Qur’an, Geʿez Christianity and an Underexplored Field
1:34:31 – Arabian Prophets and the Geography of the Qur’an
1:42:05 – Were the Qur’an’s Arabian Prophets Historical Memories or Literary Figures?
1:46:49 – Do the Qur’an’s Geographic References Challenge Its Hijazi Origins?
1:53:19 – Do the Qur’an’s Agricultural References Challenge a Hijazi Origin?
1:57:09 – Does the Book Overstate South Arabia’s Influence on the Qur’an?
2:08:27 – What Does the Qur’an Mean by Calling Itself “Arabic”?
2:10:17 – Has Epigraphic Evidence Vindicated the Traditional Origins of the Qur’an?
2:15:39 – Has Islamic Studies Entered an “Epigraphic Turn”?
2:19:19 – Closing Thoughts
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 For those interested, we strongly recommend our audience check out the book for themselves: 🔗 https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/...
📖 For those interested in exploring more of his research, we also encourage our audience to check out Dr. Süleyman Dost’s Academia.edu page, where you can find a range of his additional publications and ongoing work: 🔗 https://utoronto.academia.edu/Suleyma...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎓 This episode is brought to you by Meleteon — a platform offering live, interactive humanities courses taught by PhD-level scholars across history, philosophy, theology, and more.
📚 No prerequisites, no degrees required — just curiosity.
🔗 Explore courses at: https://meleteon.com
🐦 Follow on X: @Meleteon
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
👍 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe ❤️ and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! 👇
🎧 Real Talk Podcast
📺 Hosted by Terron Poole & Roxanna Irani
Subscribe:
@skepsislamica
📱Follow us on X (Twitter):
🐦 https://x.com/Terodotus
🐦 https://x.com/IraniRoxanna
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
❤️ If you enjoy what we do, you can also support us by becoming a member via Patreon or donating to our Buy Me a Coffee page.
Your support helps us continue bringing these conversations to a wider audience.
❤️ Patreon: u41443806
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✌🏾 Peace!
20 Comments
Just came after watching a 1 hour video from Prof Gabriel Said Reynolds (Exploring the Quran and the Bible) to this epic 2 hour video on an awesome topic.
Great video and keep up the amazing work skepsislamica.
Really interesting way to geographically centre Mecca in the middle of the discussed locations referenced by the Quran?
The Temple of Bilqis (Sheba) is very interesting too, near Marib in Yemen.
It does sound like that temple is something of a glorious lush sanctuary, a bit like Mecca, but maybe not quite.
Historical pilgrimages to this temple ARE attested.
If you research Sanctuary towns in Paran (Northwest Arabia) AI brings up Dedan, Tayma as Sanctuary towns along the old incense routes.
All a bit of an aside, but somehow all linked a propos the Origins of Islam.
How much history has been arabised and finessed?
The Marib dam finally broke around 570 AD just after Abraha, just before 'Islam'.
It is said 50000 South Arabians made an exodus across Arabia, including through Mecca and further north.
Before the Qur’an | A Conversation with Dr. Süleyman Dost
Sképsislamica
10,496 views
In this episode, we’re looking into one of the central questions in the study of early Islam: where does the Qur’an come from? 📖
This can be approached in a number of ways. Some scholars focus on the later Muslim literary tradition 📝, while others situate the Qur’an within the broader religious and linguistic context of Late Antiquity 🏛️, often drawing on Syriac and biblical parallels ✝️📚.
But another approach is to begin with the material evidence—inscriptions 🪨, archaeology 🏺, and linguistic data 🔤 that can be securely dated to the pre-Islamic period—and ask what that evidence can tell us about the Qur’an’s historical setting.
On the Real Talk Podcast 🎙️ we’re joined by Dr. Süleyman Dost to discuss his book, Before the Qur’an: Material Sources at the Advent of Muslim Scripture, which takes this approach seriously and examines what can (and cannot) be said about the Qur’an’s origins when we prioritise pre-Islamic material sources.
We discuss how this method relates to previous scholarship 🎓, the limitations of relying exclusively on epigraphic and archaeological evidence ⚖️, and what it might reveal about the linguistic and religious landscape of Arabia on the eve of Islam 🌍.
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
⏳ Timestamps:
00:00 – Introduction
01:44 – What Does It Mean to Ask “Where Does the Qur’an Come From?”
03:40 – How the Field of Islamic Origins Has Changed in the Last Decade
09:22 – Why South Arabia Has Been Neglected in Qur’anic Studies
13:30 – Can Islamic Origins Be Studied Without Muslim Sources?
17:55 – Written, Oral and Linguistic Culture in Pre-Islamic Arabia
27:00 – Did Paganism Still Exist in the Qur’an’s World?
33:36 – What the Qur’an’s Arabian Deities Reveal About Its Origins
39:33 – The Qur’an’s Inner Chronology and the Names of God
42:18 – Can Mean Verse Length and Interpolations Really Date the Qur’an?
52:34 – Al-Rahman, the Basmalah and the Development of the Qur’an
1:00:30 – Understanding the “Syriacist Trend” in Qur’anic Studies
1:06:28 – Geʿez, Aramaic and the Origins of Qur’anic Vocabulary
1:15:34 – Can Philology Oversimplify the Language of the Qur’an?
1:18:20 – Why the Stories of Abraha and Ethiopia Still Matter
1:22:08 – How Biblical and Syriac Traditions Reached the Qur’an
1:31:15 – The Qur’an, Geʿez Christianity and an Underexplored Field
1:34:31 – Arabian Prophets and the Geography of the Qur’an
1:42:05 – Were the Qur’an’s Arabian Prophets Historical Memories or Literary Figures?
1:46:49 – Do the Qur’an’s Geographic References Challenge Its Hijazi Origins?
1:53:19 – Do the Qur’an’s Agricultural References Challenge a Hijazi Origin?
1:57:09 – Does the Book Overstate South Arabia’s Influence on the Qur’an?
2:08:27 – What Does the Qur’an Mean by Calling Itself “Arabic”?
2:10:17 – Has Epigraphic Evidence Vindicated the Traditional Origins of the Qur’an?
2:15:39 – Has Islamic Studies Entered an “Epigraphic Turn”?
2:19:19 – Closing Thoughts
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
📚 For those interested, we strongly recommend our audience check out the book for themselves: 🔗 https://edinburghuniversitypress.com/...
📖 For those interested in exploring more of his research, we also encourage our audience to check out Dr. Süleyman Dost’s Academia.edu page, where you can find a range of his additional publications and ongoing work: 🔗 https://utoronto.academia.edu/Suleyma...
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
🎓 This episode is brought to you by Meleteon — a platform offering live, interactive humanities courses taught by PhD-level scholars across history, philosophy, theology, and more.
📚 No prerequisites, no degrees required — just curiosity.
🔗 Explore courses at: https://meleteon.com
🐦 Follow on X: @Meleteon
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
👍 Don’t forget to like, share, and subscribe ❤️ and let us know your thoughts in the comments below! 👇
🎧 Real Talk Podcast
📺 Hosted by Terron Poole & Roxanna Irani
Subscribe:
@skepsislamica
📱Follow us on X (Twitter):
🐦 https://x.com/Terodotus
🐦 https://x.com/IraniRoxanna
━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━
❤️ If you enjoy what we do, you can also support us by becoming a member via Patreon or donating to our Buy Me a Coffee page.
Your support helps us continue bringing these conversations to a wider audience.
❤️ Patreon: u41443806
☕ https://buymeacoffee.com/skepsislamica
✌🏾 Peace!